ce of
Account-keeper--if he will accept it! By Parker's list of
questions from him, and by earlier reminiscences recalled on that
occasion, I can discern that he is a man of lynx eyesight, of an
all-investigating curiosity: if he will accept this sublime
appointment, it will be the clearest case of elective affinity.
Accounts to you must be horrible; as they are to me: indeed, I
seldom read beyond the _last_ line of them, if I can find the
last; and one of the insupportabilities of Bookseller Accounts
is that nobody but a wizard, or regular adept in such matters,
can tell where the last line, and final net result of the whole
accursed babblement, is to be found! By all means solicit
Clark;--at all events, do you give it up, I pray you, and let the
Booksellers do their own wise way. It really is not material;
let the poor fellows have length of halter. Every new Bill from
America comes to me like a kind of heavenly miracle; a reaping
where I never sowed, and did not expect to reap: the quantity of
it is a thing I can never bring in question.--For your English
account with Nickerson I can yet say nothing more; perhaps about
Newyear's-day the poor man will enable me to say something. I
hear however that the Pirate has sold off, or nearly so, his
Two-shillings edition of the _Essays,_ and is preparing to print
another; this, directly in the teeth of Cash and double-entry
book-keeping, I take to be good news.

James is a very good fellow, better and better as we see him
more. Something shy and skittish in the man; but a brave
heart intrinsically, with sound, earnest sense, with plenty
of insight and even humor. He confirms an observation of mine,
which indeed I find is hundreds of years old, that a stammering
man is never a worthless one. Physiology can tell you why. It
is an excess of delicacy, excess of sensibility to the presence
of his fellow-creature, that makes him stammer. Hammond l'Estrange
says, "Who ever heard of a stammering man that was a fool?" Really
there is something in that.--James is now off to the Isle of Wight;
will see Sterling at Ventnor there; see whether such an Isle or
France will suit better for a winter residence.

W.E. Channing's _Poems_ are also a kind gift from you. I have
read the pieces _you had cut up for me:_ worthy indeed of
reading! That Poem _on Death_ is the utterance of a valiant,
noble heart, which in rhyme or prose I shall expect more news of
by and by. B